Cracks in the Surface
by VeIaRrGtOh
Summary: Not all families from District 2 have it easy. Aphra is struggling to keep her family together as her husband, a former Hunger Games victor, descends into madness and a visit from President Snow looms ever closer. Oneshot, please read and review!


_A/N: This is a short little oneshot about a former victor of the Hunger Games (from District 2) and his family. I never thought District 2 could be full of heartless and brutal men and women so eager to win the Hunger Games. There had to be people who feared the Capitol, who resented it. People aren't always built uniformly just because they come from a certain place. So this is just a small glimpse into this family from District 2 who is cracking under the strain of their memories and position in life. I hope you enjoy, and please read and review!_

_I own nothing. Quite literally._

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When I wake up, it's suddenly.

I sit up bolt upright in bed, blindly searching for the source of the shrieking. Of course, a small, awake part of me knows the screams are coming from my husband, next to me in bed. But the remainder of my mind is not alert yet, and so it still takes several moments for my brain to catch up with my rapidly thudding heart.

"Kirik!" I shout at him. "Kirik, wake up!"

He is writhing on the bed, twisting the sheets. His face and chest glisten with sweat. The expression on his face is terrifying: he grimaces in a grotesque show of pain and fear.

Though my hands are still trembling from the shock of being awoken so suddenly, Kirik's nightmare does not surprise me. He often relives his time in the arena in his dreams, much the worse for the both of us. This particular dream, however, does seem to be especially terrifying for him though. He cannot hear my cries. I grab onto his wrists – his muscular arms are tensed. I pull on his wrists, shaking him in an attempt to wake him up.

This is the wrong thing to do. He tenses even more at my touch and cries out, a furious sound.

"Kirik!" I cry. "Wake up, it's just a dream!"

His eyes open, but he is not awake. His eyes are rolling wildly, and he bellows like an angry animal. Now I am afraid. Kirik has had nightmares ever since we've been married – not every night, but often enough. But I have never witnessed anything like this before.

"Kirik," I call to him, taking my hand from his wrist and feeling his cheek. He is burning. But my hand near his face and his throat has triggered something in him and his eyes find my figure. Next thing I know he has let loose another furious cry and struck me, powerfully, in the jaw with the hand I just freed.

I am knocked backwards onto the mattress, too stunned to move. Kirik springs on top of me, and I feel his hands close around my throat. I can almost feel the demons of the arena urging him on as his fingers tighten. He is crushing the breath out of me.

"Kirik," I gasp out with what little oxygen I can muster, pushing at his face and kicking as hard as I can. "Kir- you're hurting-"

His eyes are open, but they are furious and hard. I feel myself crying. The whole moment is both terrifyingly real and dreamlike. Only seconds ago I was sleeping, quiet and content. How have we come here? But as spots appear in my vision, I think to myself that this has probably been a long time coming. The years of ignoring Kirik's past have caught up to us.

I've just come to accept that I am going to be killed by my possessed husband when something in his eyes changes. The nightmare is slowly receding, and he is waking up. I see the realization in his eyes as he realizes he is strangling not another tribute in the arena, but his wife. He leaps from the bed as if scalded and bounds to a far corner of the room.

My body goes limp as the air rushes back in. I am overcome by a deep cough, and I gag over the side of the bed. Trembling, I take several deep breaths – it hurts to breathe, and especially to swallow. I sit up shakily.

"Aphra," I hear Kirik's tearful voice say my name, quietly, as if he is asking for forgiveness and checking to see if it is really me. I look up at him fearfully. He is shaking worse than I, running his hands over his face and hair as if to remind himself of where and who he is. I cannot believe what just happened.

Normally after any nightmare, I would stroke his hair, tell him it was a dream, and we would go back to sleep. We wouldn't talk about it, we wouldn't address it. Just sweep it under the rug and go back to sleep. Now I am at a loss for what to do, and I am fully reminded of the fact that I live with a man who has killed with his bare hands before. I can only stare at him in horror.

He cannot bear it. Without another word, he tears his eyes from mine and runs from the room. I hear doors and objects slam, but I can't bring myself to care. He has brought me into his nightmare. He has broken the wall, the wall I so carefully put up for the both of us the day we were married – my feeble attempt to block out his past from our marriage. I can't. I can't think. I'm afraid and hurt. The tears stream down my face, and my body is racked with sobs. I lay down, curling up in the fetal position, and cry till morning.

It occurs to me somewhere around 4 a.m. that Kirik's vivid nightmare is a result of recent stress. I dread the morning, because it means final preparations for President Snow's arrival later that afternoon. What has been stressing Kirik for weeks now is also making me fearful.

I drag myself out of bed at 6 a.m. and head to the bathroom. My throat and jaw are still aching, and I swallow several painkillers from the medicine cabinet. I look at myself in the mirror. My face is red and blotchy from crying. There looks to be nothing wrong with my neck – yet – but already a dark bruise is forming to the right of my chin where Kirik struck me. I bury my face in my hands – it's nothing that can't be covered by makeup, but this is not the way I wanted to start this stressful day.

Kirik has never hit me. Ever. He won the 57th Hunger Games through sheer brutality, but he has never laid a hand on me, and he had only hit our children if they had grossly misbehaved. Why now did his nightmares become worse, why now had he lashed out?

I know exactly why. As part of the anniversary celebration of President Snow's inauguration, the President will be visiting District 2, and he elected to stay at the home of a former winner of the Hunger Games. It was our luck, or misfortune rather, to be selected to host the President and prepare a banquet in his honor. I had been handling most of the preparations for the feast and the President's stay, but I could see the strain of the situation weighing on Kirik in the past weeks as this day drew nearer. It was obvious that he was terrified of the President. Perhaps having the leader of Panem stay in his house was too much of a reminder of the Games for Kirik. I could only guess, because we hadn't discussed it. It was understood that to address our mutual unease about the President would only make our situation worse.

I turn and walk out of my bathroom. The bedroom looked cold and empty. But the sun was rising, and I walked to the window to see it. The mountains of District 2 look dark at first, but I watch as light reaches across the sky, touching the mountain peaks and then running down the mountain sides, over the trees and entrances to the mines. It finally touches the houses in the valley below, signaling the start of a new day. I hear the sounds of my children beginning to rise, so I break myself out of my reverie and ring for a makeup artist to come up to my room at once. Weakness is not tolerated in District 2, and especially not from a former victor of the Hunger Games. It wouldn't do for a victor and his family to welcome the president with a bruised wife.

What occurred this morning certainly makes me muse over the idea of divorce. It would be perfectly plausible after what just happened. I don't think that Kirik means me any harm, but ever since he returned from the Games he has been somewhat unstable. Where he was cocky and confident before, when we were children, now he is withdrawn. Still powerful, just as all aging citizens of District 2 are. But he is haunted every day by what happened to him in the arena. And I surprise myself by realizing that what happened last night does not make me want to leave him. It makes me want to stay and help him and protect our children, no matter how much it might hurt me.

My makeup artist makes a fuss over the bruise on my jaw at first, but eventually I persuade her to keep quiet and work her magic on it. In less than 20 minutes she has finished, and the bruise is almost invisible, except perhaps to those who are looking for it.

The rest of the morning passes in a flurry of last-minute preparations and errands. I ready the children to welcome President Snow and instruct the help as to how everything should be set. Kirik does not reappear in the house until just before noon.

He had obviously been out walking around all night, and he looks dreadful. He stops in the kitchen, where I am overseeing the preparation of tonight's dinner, and we look at each other. He does not speak, but his eyes are haunted and bloodshot. I cannot exactly tell if I am terrified by him or terribly sad for him. Whatever my feelings, I see in him a silent apology. He cannot voice anything here, with the servants around and the President about to arrive. He is helpless. And I find that my pity for him is overriding my anger. I've already forgiven him. Without a word, he leaves the room.

When it is time for the President's arrival, I arrange the children on the lawn. Kirik joins us wordlessly, having cleaned up and dressed but still looking a little worse for wear. We all watch in silence as a parade of cars turn onto the street and slowly approach our house. Several children from the neighborhood run alongside the car, waving flags bearing the Capitol's insignia.

I feel myself begin to tremble; it is the same uncontrollable shiver that paralyzed my body last night. Beside me, Kirik's breath is coming in quick bursts. I know he is terrified. I have always been intimidated by the power of the Capitol, but now, with my family and my sanity seemingly hanging together by a thread, I am terrified by it. If Kirik were to lose it today… I shudder to think of the disgrace and the punishment. The sheer power of the man approaching, and the sway he holds over our lives is frightening. It was as if I was seeing the true power of the Capitol for the first time, and the pressure to be perfect for President Snow was overwhelming.

The car slows to a halt in front of our house, and a footman springs from the front seat to open the door for President Snow. The president steps from the back seat, resplendent in a dark purple suit and bright red rose at his lapel. He is aging quickly; his hair is almost entirely white now, but some gray remains in his beard. He smiles widely as he walks up the path to where we stood.

I wait for Kirik to step forward and welcome the President, as was expected, but he does nothing. I quickly glance at him. His face tells me everything – he simply cannot do this, he is too far gone. He looks at the President, and I see the same fear in his eyes that I heard in his nightmarish cries the night before. I take a breath and know that I will have to be strong for the both of us.

"President Snow, welcome," I say. "Welcome to District 2, and welcome to our home."

"Thank you," he says graciously, and I step forward so he can take my hand and kiss it. "Lovely Aphra, thank you for opening your home to me." He looks at my husband. "Kirik, my old friend, how good it is to see you. It's been a long time."

Kirik steps forward stiffly to shake the President's hand. "President Snow," he manages, "it is an honor to have you visit us."

Snow smiles at him, but his eyes watch Kirik with a sick satisfaction. I can see that Kirik's fear pleases him.

"These must be your children," Snow prompts.

"Yes," I answer, swallowing the bile that rises to my throat at the idea of the object of Kirik's nightmares meeting my children. "Yes, this is our oldest, Felix, and our little girl, Faith."

"How do you do, Felix?" Snow says, shaking Felix's hand. Felix grins broadly, unaware of the tension.

"President Snow," he responds happily.

"And little Faith," Snow says, bending down to take Faith's little hand in his own. She gives him a weak, shy smile in return. "What an interesting name she has. Very old-fashioned," Snow quips as he straightens up. His last comment was directed at Kirik and myself.

"It's an old family name," I explain. "It was my mother's name. It has been in our family for years now."

Snow could not possibly understand that my daughter is named such because my mother and grandmother wanted their children to have faith, faith that freedom and happiness could come to Panem again someday. Snow would never make that connection… would he? My heart quickens anyway.

He looks at me strangely but chuckles. "Very nice. What a beautiful family you have made for yourself, Kirik."

Kirik swallows and nods, and forces a smile. "Please, President Snow," he says. "Allow me to show you inside."

I direct our children to precede us into the house. Peacekeepers follow Snow closely.

Fear is still rattling around my insides. We are walking alongside power incarnate, my husband and I. Our family has been able to mask the cracks in our surface so far, but there is still at least 24 hours to go of Snow's visit. I wonder if we will be able to make it through.

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_A/N: I really had trouble writing in the present tense like Suzanne Collins – but does the story read ok anyway? Let me know what you think by leaving a review! _

_Thanks for reading!_

_Terra _


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